So, um... here we are then. The final competitive stage. This will take four parts to cover fully, so get your game faces on (or whatever the bright young things are saying nowadays)

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An "Attacking Move" is a move that deals damage to an opponent as its main purpose. All other moves are considered "Non-Attacking Moves." As a general rule, any move that can be used under Taunt is considered to be an Attacking Move. However, there are a few exceptional moves that deal a small amount of damage, but their primary battle purpose is based on a secondary move effect, and are therefore considered Non-Attacking moves. For example, Rapid Spin and Knock Off are considered to be Non-Attacking Moves, even though they can be used under Taunt. U-turn can be used as an attacking move on Pokemon such as Scizor, which has a high Attack stat and gets STAB on the move; however, on Pokemon such as Fidgit, it is used more as a scouting or support move. The Topic Leader has sole discretion for interpreting which moves are considered Attacking or Non-Attacking Moves for a given Pokemon.

All moves will be categorized as Competitive, Non-Competitive, or Required.

Competitive moves are moves that are viable for use in battle on a given Pokemon. This categorization is applicable depending on the Pokemon. Sometimes a move will be competitive on one Pokemon and non-competitive for another.

Required moves are moves that must be included in the final movepool, and are generally not up for discussion. A list of common Required moves can be found on the Movepool Submissions page.

The Topic Leader will post a list of moves in the OP of the thread. This list will serve as a single point-of-reference for the current state of the discussion. The first list of moves should be compiled by the Topic Leader prior to opening the thread, and will serve as the initial list of moves to begin discussion.

The list should contain all moves that are considered Competitive for the Pokemon being created. The Topic Leader has final say for determining whether a move is Competitive, Non-Competitive, or Required. The TL should use these lists for moves that are generally considered Competitive moves.

The list of moves will be separated into three sections indicating the "status" of the move in the current discussion -- Allowed, Disallowed, Controversial, or Pending.

Allowed - Moves that have been agreed through general community consensus to be allowed in the Pokemon's final movepool

Disallowed - Moves that have been agreed through general community consensus to not be allowed in the Pokemon's final movepool

Controversial - Moves that did not reach general community consensus, and will require a specific vote.

Pending - Moves that have not received enough support or opposition to determine whether they are Allowed, Disallowed, or Controversial

The community should make posts arguing for moves to be Allowed or Disallowed. The Topic Leader should re-categorize moves as the discussion progresses.

At the conclusion of the Movepool Discussion, the Topic Leader will make a final update to the OP move list and the thread will be locked.
Any Controversial Moves will proceed to be voted on in a Move Poll. Any Controversial moves that receive a sufficient majority of votes, will be added to the Allowed moves list.

Move Discussion Posting Rules

The list of moves in this post will serve as the single point-of-reference for the current state of the discussion.

Post arguments for moves to be Allowed or Disallowed from the Pokemon's final movepool. All posts should be presented with reasoning.

Posting lists of moves is strictly prohibited. Do not copy the TL's list, and then add "Yes/No" or a similarly worthless comment, beside each one. Posts that contain lists of moves will be deleted, even if the post contains additional reasoning and content.

The Topic Leader will update the list continuously throughout the discussion, using recent posts to determine changes to the move list. Moves may have a fluctuating status as the community debates for or against the move in response to changes in the OP.

Posts should be based on the current state of the list in the OP. It is the responsibility of each member to check the OP before making any post in the thread. Posts that demonstrate lack of familiarity with the current OP will be deleted.

The Topic Leader is the sole arbiter for determining "general community consensus". The TL may ignore arguments for or against certain moves, if they feel the argument is not presented with sufficient evidence or reasoning. Do not assume that the existence of a few dissenting posts will ensure that a move will be categorized as Controversial.

All moves that are considered Competitive for this Pokemon are included in the list in the OP. Non-Competitive moves should not be discussed in this thread, unless you feel they are incorrectly categorized and should be considered Competitive (see next rule).

If you disagree with the TL's categorization of a move as Competitive or Non-Competitive, you can post arguments in this thread, but reasoning must be supplied.

General Description: This Pokémon is very risky to play, but very rewarding if played correctly.

Justification: Many of the Pokémon that are successful in OU are relatively easy to play or have great "safe" options (e.g. U-turn). Yet, many other Pokémon look very powerful, but are less successful than they could be because of some large risks involved (e.g. Hydreigon), and some aren't successful at all (e.g. Honchkrow). This self-balancing concept intends to explore what it takes for a risky Pokémon to be successful, and how much inherent risk a Pokémon can get away with. It should be emphasized that this concept is NOT about luck management, but rather, it is about what the user can afford to do given his/her opponent's options, and vice versa.

Questions To Be Answered:

What is the relationship between risk and potential consequences, both positive and negative?

What kinds of inherently risky tactics are successful in the OU metagame?

Do risky Pokémon need some form of safe options (e.g. switch-ins) to be successful in OU, or can it get away with having few really safe options?

How does Substitute, a well-known "safe" move with nearly universal distribution, impact how this Pokémon is built and played?

How do existing Pokémon use and deal with risky situations?

Can risky Pokémon be played well in the early game, or are they better off put into action later on?

Welcome, one and all, to the final competitive section-type-thing of CAP4! We have our typing, we have our abilities, and we have our stats – all that's left is the horrifying spectre of the movepool. And on a Pokemon such as this, this is absolutely the stage we need to get right. We've survived with a risky typing, a risky set of abilities, and a stat spread to make them work – this is the final glue that sticks the whole thing together. That takes everything into consideration and makes the creation final. In short, this is the absolute most important part of the process and I would really encourage you all to take this as seriously as possible.

…nah.

In all seriousness this is meant to be a serious discussion thread, but all the same I encourage posts from everyone, so long as you keep on-topic. This is the kind of discussion that goes very well when there are lots of different opinions rather than two main camps pitted against one another, so all viewpoints are most definitely welcome. Now, before we begin (I won't keep you long, promise), there are some things that must be said. First, I should reiterate that this Pokemon should be capable of physical, special, and mixed sweeping. It's not a complete disaster if it isn't, of course, but that's just something to keep in mind. Second, remember that flavour opinions are not welcome here. If you want to talk about what a Bug/Psychic Pokemon really ought to have, you should go and discuss it in the Create-A-Pokemon Kitchen thread. Finally, do please remember that this thread does not decide what the final movepool will look like! It only decides the pool of attacking moves that one can use to make one's movepool – and please note that if a VGM is not on the Allowed list, it is disallowed automatically. So do speak up if there are VGMs that I haven't added.

Oh, and before we begin, just in case anybody feels like being clever, I have decided to specify that Fiery Dance will be treated as a VGM for this CAP. There's a loophole with the current rules and VGM list in that you could add Fiery Dance to your movepools without it being added to the "Allowed Moves" list and without it being considered a VGM, so I'm just closing off that possibility.

Now then, as for my vision here… I will reiterate that CAP 4 should have no hard counters, only checks. What this means is that it should have both adequate 3-move and 4-move coverage, the former to sweep and the latter to trade sweeping ability for extra coverage. Thus, here we want to ensure that there are no gaping holes in our CAP's ability to cover its threats on the switch – but also that it is unable to deal the same or adequate damage by choosing a "safe" option in any given situation.

So. Here's how we start off.

Required
- I'm going to go out on a limb and say that BW Type-Move requirements should be followed. That means that for Competitive Attacking Moves, Psychic, Psyshock, and Shadow Ball must be on all movepools.
- Psychic and Psyshock should be on all movepools anyway. I wouldn't accept a movepool for slate that didn't have both. Shadow Ball is pretty much strictly redundant with Bug/Psychic, though it could be used for Jellicent I guess.

Allowed
- All non-legendary exclusive STAB attacking moves, basically
- Balance on both sides in terms of power vs. reliability
- Stored Power an impressive risky move. This needs no explaining, I hope.
- Allowed with proviso: Psycho Boost. Now, as much as I am against legendary exclusive moves, I do feel that Psycho Boost is an excellent risky move in the sense of one-time power, especially considering the discrepancy in power between it and Psychic. Thus a compromise – that it is allowed only as an Event move, for sake of flavour. And yes, I know that flavour is not a priority for us, but at the same time I feel a need to keep legendary exclusives as legendary exclusives, as it were.
- Interestingly, this arrangement gives a number of interesting applications, with regard to the illegalities of egg moves (of course, you could just not put important moves in the egg section if it bothers you), which enhances the teambuilding-risk aspect, as well as possible Cherish Ball or forced shiny applications (and yes, I know that Balls aren't programmed in. But this is an interesting spin on risk, all the same, if only with regard to shiny Pokemon. But I'll leave that decision up to the movepool creators.

Currently being discussed
- Basically the order of the day here is "Steel coverage"
- Bug / Psychic / Fighting, Bug / Psychic / Water, and Bug / Psychic / Electric are all pretty much comprehensive 3-move combinations
- We can add Fire- and Ground-type moves here too under the heading of coverage on Steel-types
- Note that CAP4 is unlikely to be able to fit all of these moves onto its movepool – in fact it will be more or less impossible. Ergo, only argue for the exclusion of something if you think that it will be legitimately damaging or overpowering competitively, either on its own or alongside something else (ie. To the tune of "I don't think it should get both Thunder and Blizzard because the BoltBeam combination is potentially a greater asset than its STAB attacks" and not "It shouldn't get Close Combat because we don't want to make it too powerful".

Disallowed
- These should all hopefully be obvious
- U-turn and Volt Switch are pretty much the universal safe moves
- I'd rather this thing didn't get healing of any sort, so no draining moves
- On the other hand, recoil-dealing attacks are also a no-no for sake of "no we don't intend to die in the first three turns thanks very much"
- All very inaccurate moves disallowed. There is no reason to give No Guard more of a boost than it has. I am adamant that nothing under 70% accuracy, at a bare minimum, should be considered.

If you've been paying attention to these little titbits, you should have probably noticed by now that a) I like impressive-sounding names and b) I like British species. My #6 is both of these: Britain's largest dragonfly, the Emperor Dragonfly.

To be honest though, you could put any dragonfly here. The Emperor was merely chosen for my familiarity with it and, well, the fact that it is really quite beautiful. That blue colour, oh my. But dragonflies are lovely in so many other ways, too. Not only have they been around since pretty much the dawn of terrestrial Animalia, they're also faster than just about anything and eat pretty much every arthropod that has ever given mankind just cause for complaint. If you don't feel happy when you see a dragonfly, I'm afraid there's something wrong with you.

I'd say Focus Blast should be allowed. No Guard wouldn't have a high-reward as an ability if Aurumoth didn't have good low accuracy moves to use. Not to mention a large number of fully-evolved Psychic Pokemon have Focus Blast as a TM move.

Aura Sphere would instantly find a place on any set besides No Guard ones. It's really too good of a move to consider to have risk given its accuracy, power, and coverage. Honestly, with the exception of Mienshao and its low Special Attack, nothing ever gets Aura Sphere and doesn't use it because of just how good it is. Again, that really doesn't fit on Aurumoth.

Superpower would never be used on Weak Armor set because of the chance of -2 defense in one turn. Yet, I think this should be the only steel type coverage move to make it even more risky. Defense drop every time you kill a steel? That is risky. But this brings up the problem of weak armor possibly being used less than the other abilities.

A safer alternative to Focus Blast should be available if we decide to go that route, otherwise I think that there will be too much incentive to use no guard variants over the other abilities. Perhaps we should give it Aura Sphere and not Focus Blast.

I agree with allowing Superpower as a risky move. Aura Sphere's explanation can be found above. However, with allowing Superpower, I'd like to also allow Close Combat. Close Combat seems to allow the alternative of using Weak Armor while maintaining a high-attack Aurumoth. So, Aurumoth can maintain a sweep without having to become weaker and to a point of uselessness. There's still the threat of a priority-attacker taking advantage of Aurumoth's lowered defenses so we'll still get that risky play that we covet right now.

As for the following Fire attacks, I'd say allow Overheat, but disallow Flamethrower and Fire Blast. With No Guard, Fire Blast and Overheat both have perfect accuracy, amending Fire Blast's downsides. Flamethrower is already a safe and strong coverage attack to add to Aurumoth's repertiore. Now the reason I favor Overheat is, like Superpower, because of the stat drop. These stat drops seem to simply favor the idea of risky play and second-thinking for certain moves. Also, with Aurumoth's weakness to Pursuit and Stealth Rock, switching in and out won't be too favorable so we'll have to determine and become the judge of when gamble or not. Just a thought.

I'm not sure to what extent we want to go here, but I'm of the mind we should be very careful in our coverage selections and make them fit the concept.

I think Bug/Psychic/Fighting should be the core we're focusing on here. So that would mean allowing Focus Blast and Aura Sphere on the Special side and something more like allowing Cross Chop and Superpower for Fighting. I think Close Combat is a bit much, since its much less risky that Superpower. I think Electric moves in general are also fine because they deal with Skarmory, so I support allowing Thunderbolt and Thunder.

An example would be something like Allowing Overheat and, but not allowing Fire Blast and Flamethrower, the objective being to minimize the "safe" moves outside the Bug/Psychic/Fighting core.

I also support allowing Earth Power and Earthquake since it's the most direct method of dealing with Heatran and Jirachi but as a Ground move is fairly risky, unless we give Aurumoth Gravity, in which case it becomes a lot more useful.

I think allowing Giga Drain is fine. Grass doesn't add much to Bug/Psychic since most of the major threats are either already weak to a STAB or neutral to Grass (Tyranitar, Terrakion, Landorus/-T, Gliscor). Our Pokemon is still weak to a great deal of residual damage, it makes little sense to bar offensive forms of healing. Hell, I'd even go for allowing Horn Leech since physical attacks tend to do better in OU.

Incidentally I also like the idea of allowing Dragon Pulse and Dragon Rush, as well as Outrage. Dragonite resists Bug and is neutral to Psychic, hitting it super-effectively while retaining good neutral coverage is preferable.

I'm going to say disallow Hydro Pump and Surf. I think they're too much of a good deal when paired with rain support: they hit all the steels that Bug/Psychic can't hurt very hard, without having to decide between another coverage move for a 3 attacking move set with different pros/cons (e.g. Fire vs Fighting vs Ground). The fact that pseudo-STAB Hydro Pump is more powerful than Aurumoth's regular STABs also worries me, and with No Guard the 80% accuracy isn't an issue like it is for the other users of the move. Surf may be fine though, but for now I'm going to say that neither should be allowed.

EDIT: A little more justification. The Pokemon in OU resisting Bug/Psychic: Skarmory, Forretress, Scizor, Genesect, Magnezone, Heatran - all of which are at least 2HKOd in the rain by Hydro Pump, making it too easy of a choice when compared to that of other coverage moves.

Considering it was stated that the kind of risk we wanted to take shouldn't have to be around missing or not, so I don't see why not allow him to use both, Aura Sphere would be used in Weak Armor & Illusion sets, while No Guard ones would use Focus Blast, so that each one had a good move and so having to really on Focus Blast for coverage then encouraged people to avoid the other two. So Allow Aura Sphere and Focus Blast

I think U-turn should be allowed, it's a good STABed move coming from a 120 Atk, yes, but this also comes from a pokemon weak to every form of damage, and actually, I would venture to say it's one of the, if not the, least useful users in OU, Aurumoth doesn't have the switch in opportunities, nor the defensive typing and powerful priority/coverage that Scizor and Genesect have, both which do the revenge a lot better. It's vulnerable to Spikes unlike Tornadus-T, Landorus or Hidreigon and due to being SR weak, and vulnerable to all forms of damage you might be taking a good chunk of your health just by switching in, so using it is a risk in the way that you could not be switching in again, and not even doing enough damage to make the whole thing worth it.

It's also an interesting option for an Illusion set, since you might lure an unsuspected check and remove it so a latter mon can sweep, and something to move it under Genesect/Scizor's shadow. Choiced sets might use it too, but Gene is probably better there..

CAP gets great neutral coverage out of Bug/Psychic/Water, Bug/Psychic/Fighting, and Bug/Psychic/Electric, and meanwhile those coverage types all nab some key super-effective and otherwise neutral damage on a swath of potential checks, especially Steel-types. When it comes to completing a three-attack moveset, each of these three types seem equally viable to me and have adequate pros and cons when compared to one another (much like Auromoth's three Abilities). In effect, that choice of third coverage move will play directly into the "situational checks" idea we're trying to push through, and so we should at least get a shot at taking advantage of the two incredibly useful offensive tools they provide: movepool cohesiveness (OU-worthy coverage) and offensive variety (i.e. bluffing coverage to force switches). Allow Close Combat, Superpower, Cross Chop, Hammer Arm, Brick Break, Focus Blast, Aura Sphere, Hydro Pump, Surf, Thunderbolt, and Thunder. None of these will overpower our moth on their own (some are just plain bad, like Brick Break and Hammer Arm), and so, as it can't run them all at once, it'll probably only run one, due to the power of neutral coverage (keep in mind Auromoth is naturally outsped by a sizable majority of Pokemon it threatens with its STABs, like Keldeo/Terrakion/Infernape/Hydreigon/Genesect/Lati@s/Starmie/Alakazam, etc., most of which can OHKO it right back, so forcing switches is going to be very difficult without a handful of coverage moves).

Moderator

Now, as I have said over on irc multiple times is that, while we definitely need to give Aurumoth the moves it needs to be successful, I don't think we want to just give it everything just because it doesn't look like it would be used on the same set. While decision between options is one type of risk, choosing something that completely lacks a given option is just as risky, and I think overall for this project, erring on the side of caution would be advised, as, while I believe we can be very successful here, creating something that becomes too risky to use will teach us a lot more than just making another great Pokemon.

It is because of this that I would like to try and avoid having every option in the book available while still having plenty of options to choose from. When it comes to moves that cover steels I think a great way to do this is to allow plenty of choices, but restrict those moves to either physical or special. It does not need Fire/Water/Electric/Fighting/Ground as an option for every set, and when all of them give it the same near perfect coverage, doing so will just make it near impossible to check without potentially sacrificing something, which I think is the opposite of risk, if anything. However, having them all for options but on distinct sets that can be told apart by an intelligent opponent would be a great way to provide it with flexibility without going over the top. To this extent I believe that we should give it most or all of those types of coverage, but only on one side of the attacking spectrum each.

In my personal opinion, the best way to do this would be to allow physical Fighting and Ground coverage moves and Special Water, Electric and Fire coverage moves, but NOT Special Fighting/Ground coverage or Physical Water/Electric/Fire. Now really, the exact split of which are special and which are physical don't really matter too much, but I prefer this way for a few reasons. First of all, Fire and Electric lack any decent physical moves that lack recoil, with the exception of legendary exclusives. Therefore, special is really the only way to go with these. Between the remaining 3, fighting is the one I have the strongest feelings on. Personally, while I want No Guard to be a viable option on most sets, based on the reasons that it was selected in the first place, I believe that the reason it should be advantageous should be the reliability it provides, NOT because it gives you more power. Focus Blast, while a common move in OU, is only really used when there is no more reliable option. While 80+% accuracy moves are commonly used over weaker counterparts (Hydro Pump/Fire Blast/Stone Edge), 70% accuracy is just too low to use unless it is absolutely necessary. Due to this discrepancy, with special fighting coverage, either we also give it Aura Sphere and the power discrepancy becomes incredibly noticeable, or we do not and the sets with different abilities begin to not even resemble each other, which is not something we really want. Therefore, I think Special Fighting moves should not be allowed, but if for some reason they are, Focus Blast specifically should be disallowed. So, if Fighting is Physical only that just leaves Water and Ground left, and while I don't really have much preference between physical and special for those types, I just put them like this due to the higher average power of Physical Ground and Special Water compared to their opposite attacking stat counterparts.

Now, with all that being said, I have very little I am opposed to as far as individual moves. Thunder is similar to Focus Blast, and thus I was leaning toward saying we should disallow it, but since rain is so prevalent in OU, it can actually see use over a reliable counterpart on non No Guard sets, so I see no reason for it not to be fine. And really, that is all I have to say on this. If we can restrict each type to physical or special, there aren't really any specific moves I have anything against.

Moderator

I'll have a lengthier post later, when I have more time to consider all the moves on the table.

What I'd like to have cleared up now, before I get too involved in starting to make a movepool, is whether or not No Guard is the D/W Ability. We simply labeled it as Tertiary in the thread title, and I think this is especially relevant for movepool makers as we start to assemble ours together.

I think there's a little bit too much risk mentality with not enough reward. It's obvious that the CAP is supposed to be risky, but I think at this point in the project, unless we give some really good offensive options, the consistency of Aurumoth performing its role to a proper degree during the playtesting won't be as high as we'd like. I'm not suggesting we give it more reward simply by slapping good moves on it. I rather mean that we should look for more ways to reward Aurumoth by managing what risk we get from our movepool.

For example, I think we should allow only one of Close Combat or Superpower, but additionally allow Cross Chop as well. Having one of the Defense-lowering 120 BP other Fighting-type moves as an means that you are essentially stuck being OHKO'd by a revenge killing Pursuit user. However, with Cross Chop as an alternative, the reward comes in through the means of whether your opponent's own risk is heightened as well. They do not have a lot of risk sending in a Choice Scarfed Pursuit user when you're clearly fodder for that, which many teams will become accustomed to doing. However, if you run Cross Chop instead of Close Combat/Superpower, your reward now comes in that instead of doing as much power before, you have negated a potential weakness that would have been a surefire counter before. It goes into the physiological part of battling, I suppose. By not becoming more consistently weaker in that area, you have found reward already in Aurumoth.

I also want to take the time to say that the last thing we need is to add another rain-mon to our CAP repository. If Aurumoth finds a weather it prefers, that actually ends up removing some of its risk in that the situations that it consistently gains reward without risk increases. You could argue that the weather might change, but that is risk you'll immediately know you'll have or not as soon as a match starts, meaning you'll be able to play "riskily" without the actual risk. Not what we're going for. As such, allow Thunderbolt, but Disallow Thunderand Hydro Pump. I'm on the fence about Surf, as it's nice coverage but won't exactly be molding Aurumoth into any rain teams that easily.

Since Aurumoth is based off risk, any moves that lower stats should definitively be allowed, namely Close Combat, Superpower, Hammer Arm, and Overheat.That would mean you would have to KO your opponent, or Aurumoth won't survive the next attack due to it's lowered stats, or might not be strong or fast enough for another attack.
Most of the moves should be powerful, but have downsides that balance it out. (personally, i'm not sure if Aura Sphere would really follow the concept, since it has perfect accuracy.)

I'll have a lengthier post later, when I have more time to consider all the moves on the table.

What I'd like to have cleared up now, before I get too involved in starting to make a movepool, is whether or not No Guard is the D/W Ability. We simply labeled it as Tertiary in the thread title, and I think this is especially relevant for movepool makers as we start to assemble ours together.

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Um... that makes absolutely zero difference to anything?

I'll post my thoughts once I've formed them. Lots of conflicting opinions here, but it's nice to see plenty of discussion. I won't be able to respond again tonight, so watch for me tomorrow. Keep going until then.

Moderator

Before this gets too far I want to comment briefly on what was brought up here by GRs Cousin and a few other people on IRC. Honestly, I really don't get the argument of not allowing moves based on not wanting to make it a rain mon. I mean seriously. Giving it Fire moves doesn't make anyone call it a sun mon, but some lingering bias that people have against rain somehow makes anything with access to Water moves or Thunder a rain abuser. Seriously guys, lets face the facts. If it has Water moves it will be used in rain, sure. But if it doesn't have water moves it will also be used in rain. And guess what? Regardless of whether it has them or not, it will also be used against rain teams. That is just the way OU is. Denying something coverage because we don't want it to be used in a certain type of weather is just foolish bias. Not giving it the ability Rain Dish or something would be one thing, but not giving it a generic good move because it the tier it is in happens to like rain is just absurd to me.

Moderator

I somewhat agree with the general idea that jas posted, but perhaps it's for different reasons. I'm finding more that I don't really see the need to give Aurumoth a viable/effective entirely physical set, depending on what special coverage moves Aurumoth has (or entirely special set depending on physical coverage, but special coverage is probably easier). Must be the Black Kyurem playtest... That said, I'm not sure if it's really necessary to go too much into specifics for this, or even if it should result in an "official" ban in this thread. I also disagree with the idea that Aurumoth's sets have to be independent of its ability choice. If anything, it might be interesting to see how different abilities operate and pick their moves. I guess what I'm trying to say in the end is that I don't see a competitive-based problem with any of the moves that are up for discussion right now.

Moderator

I'll post my thoughts once I've formed them. Lots of conflicting opinions here, but it's nice to see plenty of discussion. I won't be able to respond again tonight, so watch for me tomorrow. Keep going until then.

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Actually bob it's relevant because if we make it Male Only from the Dream World, then the DW ability cannot get egg moves.